Our District continued to use a modified year-round calendar for the 2025-26 school year. This calendar provided opportunities for additional breaks that have proven to be beneficial for both students and teachers. Latta High School continued to support a one-to-one initiative with all students being issued Chromebooks, which allowed instruction to continue to take place when student absences or eLearning days were necessary.
Latta High School is accredited through Cognia and during our Cognia Mid-Cycle Review in the fall of 2025, we had no deficiencies and were instructed to continue working on our established goals in preparation for our next formal evaluation. During the 2025-26 school year, our departments continued to work in data teams to target students needing additional support in order to achieve success. We have utilized Monday teacher meetings and in-service days to provide opportunities for teachers to meet with their teams. On these professional development days, teachers have also been provided an opportunity to earn professional development hours in various areas to help with their continued certification. Teachers continued to have opportunities to develop their technology skills through staff development conducted by our Teacher Leaders. This enabled our faculty to continue to improve their technology skills to be better prepared to serve our students.
We also started the Leader in Me journey during the 2025-26 school year. We were able to select our Lighthouse Leadership Team and began meetings with our key Leader in Me mentors and coaches. The Leader in Me initiative will be district-wide. All of our schools have started this journey. A first step was to have a district meeting for leaders from all three school to come together to help us decide how to begin our journey. During our professional development day in March, we had our school Lighthouse Team meet to make decisions concerning our upcoming school level journey. We had a wonderful time of professional development with this group. We have professional development planned for the upcoming year for all faculty and staff. We are excited and look forward to the benefits we will receive as we continue to progress along our Leader in Me journey.
During the 2025-26 school year, Latta High School promoted World Class Knowledge by offering rigorous courses in the International Baccalaureate Programme. We have forty-five juniors and seniors taking courses in this program and five are working for the International Baccalaureate Diploma. Our goal is to increase the number participating in this program in the next few years. Our Project Lead the Way Engineering program has continued to be a strong program, and we have fourteen students completing all four courses in the pathway this year. Our agriculture program is also gaining numbers, and we will have sixteen agriculture completers this year. This is up from five students in 2024-25. We certainly want to continue to grow both of these programs.
Our extracurricular activities have been well-supported during the 2025-26 school year. Our agriculture students continue to work diligently to make our greenhouse a huge success. People throughout the community purchase various types of plants from our greenhouse, and the proceeds help fund our agriculture program. Our Academic Challenge Team finished second in the Region and represented our school well. Our Varsity Football Team and the Varsity Boys Basketball Team were in the playoffs this year. Our Varsity Volleyball Team was the Lower State Champions. This was the first time in the history of our program that our team has made it to this level. In addition, our Varsity Girls Basketball Team made it to the Lower State Championship game. Our Cross Country Team also qualified to participate in the state competition. Our 2025 Varsity Softball Team won the 1A State Championship Title last spring. The final game was at our home field and was an exciting night for everyone. The 2025 Varsity Baseball team made it through several rounds of the playoffs, some track members and some golf members made it to the state level. The 2025-26 Varsity Softball Team, Track Team, and Golf Team had wonderful seasons. The 2025-26 Varsity Baseball Team won the 1A State Championship title on May 30, 2026. This was certainly a wonderful end to their season.
Our continued implementation of Inquiry-Based instruction also led to the development of World Class Skills, to include critical thinking, problem solving, and innovation. Students were once again able to work in groups to collaborate on activities and projects in the classroom. Teachers continued to utilize Google Classroom for assignments, which supports our technology initiative.
We continued to stress the development of Life and Career Characteristics through students participating in Individual Graduation Plan Conferences in order to plan for their chosen careers. All seniors were able to participate in our College Application Day, which provided assistance with the college application process. All participating seniors completed at least one college application and many completed several applications during the event. We anticipate a large percentage of the senior class will enroll in postsecondary education in order to achieve their goals.
We continue to focus on our Arts programs. We had a Drama performance first semester and will have a musical during second semester. Dance also had a performance first semester and will have another performance during the spring semester. Band participated in several marching contests this fall and participated in the Lower State Marching Competition. We also had a winter band concert and a spring concert is in the works. Students continue to participate in Region Band and Solo and Ensemble competitions. Our Art students continue to display art work at various functions at school and in the community.
We are proud of our students’ achievements and the efforts of our staff to exceed the challenges of a rigorous and relevant education to meet the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate. We believe with students, teachers, staff, School Improvement Council members, community members, and parents working collaboratively, we will continue to strive for excellence.
Nanette W. Carmichael, Principal
